Marui's Moodswings
by Echo of Sound
Summary: Marui finds he gets a crush on someone he can't have, and becomes a moody little butthead. [Rikkai centric and rated higher for mild language]


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Prince of Tennis. Its soul ownership belongs to Konomi Takeshi.

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"It's not my fault that you suck!" Marui shouted loud enough for the court yard to hear him. It caused a grin to play on his lips as his kouhai stopped dead. That's right, brat. Back it up. Marui thought to himself satisfactorily, crossing his arms in front of himself. He picked on Akaya, not the other way around, damnit. Hmph.

Kirihara rounded on his feet and stalked back to Marui, glaring at him, and coming dangerously close to grabbing his senpai's shirt collar. "Take it back!"

"I will not." The redhead said, blowing a bubble nonchalantly.

"I'll make you if you don't take it back." Kirihara fumed.

"A lovers quarrel maybe?" Yukimura asked, trying to hide his smirk as he leaned closer to Yanagi, who's insides were twisting in anticipation and a driving need to get up and protect Kirihara.

"That's enough, kids." Jackal intervened, tugging on Akaya's arm gently, then pointing to the hulking figure that was stalking its way across the grass. "If you don't, you'll get the bitch slap of doom."

Kirihara almost visibly stiffened, but let Jackal pull him away to walk toward the track field. Though, he gave a fleeting glimpse at the nasty fucker blowing the bubble he wanted to pop with his finger, and shove the damn bubblegum down his windpipe.

"Marui, what was all that about?" Sanada's commanding voice cut through his satisfactory thoughts, and made the smirk fall. Giving a shrug, he answered with "Nothin, boss. Bye" and bolted toward the gym. He and Akaya would settle everything later in his living room after school.

-----

That afternoon, without fail, Kirihara showed up at his door step wearing a 'bite me or die' death glare. Giving a fake yawn and a stretch, and even went so far as to give a tear in the corner of his eye before looking dopily at his kouhai. "Sorry, kiddo, but I ain't taking visitors today. Go play somewhere else." 

Stepping closer to his senpai, Kirihara's glare turned into a grin. "You think that was good enough?"

"Dunno. Get your ass in here and we can talk about it more." Marui craned his head to look passed Akaya, hoping that none of the neighbors saw them together. It would mean that the whole plan would get ruined if Yanagi happened to see them. "I thought I told you to sneak into the back?" He asked, pulling Akaya in by the jacket and closing the door.

"You did, but it was all muddy, and I didn't wanna track that crap in here." Kirihara replied, frowning and taking his jacket off.

Reaching up, Marui bopped Akaya on the forehead. "Duh. There's a back hallway too, baka." Sometimes he swore the kid didn't have a brain. It was why his secret nickname for Akaya was 'Scarecrow' because of the Wizard of Oz. In fact Marui had everyone pegged in that movie, but supposed he just watched it to much, so didn't want to think too much in depth on it.

Frowning, Kirihara muttered a response of "don't call me 'baka', senpai." and it almost made Marui squeal at how adorable his kouhai looked. No. Down boy! He's Yanagi's. Which is a shame, he thought with his own frown.

"Why'd you have to attack my favorite game, anyway? I don't suck at it. You really do, because you can never beat me." Something Marui learned was to never, ever, insult Akaya's video games, much less any of the Soul Caliber games. They were like the kids babies or something.

"Should have thrown out your own insult or something." He shrugged and made his way into the living room. "Made it more believable. You wanna make us look like lovers or something, right?"

"Think it worked?"

"Stop asking me. I don't know... probably. Maybe?" Sitting on the couch, he scrunched himself up comfortably and rested against the arm, using it as a pillow. It was tv time, not plot time. Plot time could wait until after his show, and Akaya better keep his trap shut or he'd shut it for him.

Kirihara, however, knew to keep quiet when his senpai was watching Bleach. Knew he had a thing for the main character, and rolled his eyes thinking it was stupid he had a crush on an anime character. And he was the baka? Jeez. At least the plot was interesting.

"Why don't you just tell him you like him? I don't think he'd back down." Marui said the moment the Shinigami Cup was over.

"I don't know if he likes me." He answered, slouching. Marui sighed a little frustratedly.

"You're never gonna know if you try to trick him. Besides, he's the Rikkai Data-man. You think you can pull the wool over his eyes? He's not relationship stupid, y'know. Him and that creepy Inui guy had a weird thing going when they were kids or something." Or at least that was a rumor, anyway.

Kirihara, to this day, couldn't figure out why he went to Marui-senpai for relationship help. Not that he was in one or anything, because obviously he was trying to snooker another senpai into some kind of confrontation with him, and it was failing miserably.

"That was aaaages ago" Kirihara whined and almost flailed. He felt stupid in the first place. Didn't know how in the hell he even managed to act normal around him or anything. Just knew he did, and when they'd get close he'd either freeze to the spot, almost scuttle away, or try his best to hide his blush. Baka He thought to himself.

"God. Did anyone ever tell you whining grates on the nerves?" Marui covered his ear, then reached into the side table by his end of the couch and grabbed a piece of bubblegum.

"Shut up" Kirihara muttered.

"You shut up." Marui glared before continuing. "Here's the plan. I'm gonna tell Yanagi I need his help with something on the roof. Some dumb experiment using math crap and paper airplanes."

"That's lame."

"Its my real project."

Kirihara laughed.

"Baka." Marui muttered, then popped a bubble and adjusted himself in his seat. "You're gonna be the one to meet him up there, and not me. And then you're gonna confess your feelings."

"What?!" Kirihara was... well he was something, and it sure wasn't a good something! He couldn't do that! Everything would be ruined if Yanagi-senpai didn't like him back! He whined again and slouched even more, almost falling off the couch. "I can't do that. Like... I don't even think he's gay, so how's he gonna react when he's got me confessing feelings for him?"

"If you're lucky he'll like you back, if you're not you know he's a good guy and isn't going to disrespect you." Which was true, because Yanagi was a reasonable guy. Marui could totally understand why Kirihara had a major crush on him.

"That's what I'm afraid of. Not the liking me back bit, but the part that he knows and if he doesn't like me back then I'm toast." Kirihara had resigned to pouting like a three year old who was scolded.

"Then take him a bento or something? I can't do all the damn thinking for you." Marui gave a half hearted frustrated sigh and wanted to flop, but he was already seated.

"Fine. Thanks for the help, senpai." Kirihara stood up and made his way to the front.

"Go through the back, and I'll tell him tomorrow." Marui waved from the couch lazily.

------

The next day, as planned, Marui told Kirihara to meet Yanagi on the roof, and he was somewhere within ear shot of the whole thing, but hiding somewhere neither could see. Oh hell no! He wasn't going to miss this! His plan was fool proof, of course. He was a tensai no matter what topic, after all. 

The dumb brat ended up blurting everything out to Yanagi, who handled it wonderfully, though pink faced. It was almost cute watching their exchange, except he kinda felt jealous. Somewhere along the lines he'd developed his own crush on the demon in training, and it sucked hard.

Oh well. Time to creep away before he got sick to his stomach by the cutesy crap they were doing. Jesus Yanagi opened up fast.

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**AN:** Working on the second chapter now, but Marui-muse and Jackal-muse are currently in something sorta like hibernation. That type of thing always happens when I actually start to get a direction, but not the motivation to finish. Anyway! I love getting comments and critiques, so if you have any lemme know. Also, I'd like to point out that I haven't done much writing for Prince of Tennis yet, and if the characters are anywhere near off let me know so I can correct it? Thank you! 


End file.
